In various types of social networks, there may be a need to collect, maintain, and utilize profile data. Profile data is information that is contained within, or otherwise associated with, a user's member profile in a social networking system. Examples of common profile data include name, job, industry, location, education, skills, etc.
Typically, profile data is collected first when a user originally signs up with the social networking service. Unfortunately, many users do not complete all of their member profile at that time. Oftentimes at least some profile data is left blank, either because the user intends to complete it at a later date or the user simply does not wish to provide the information at that time. Lack of complete profile data, however, can impair how the social networking system operates at the technical level.
For example, a social networking service may utilize profile data about a user who is performing a search on the social network in order to retrieve and/or rank search results. If the searcher's profile data is lacking, then the retrieved results and/or rankings are likely to be in accurate, or at least not optimally accurate.
Efforts to encourage users to complete additional profile data have been hampered due to user resistance to interruption during online activities. Even when providing the additional profile data would be in the user's own best interests, users are often reluctant to stop their online activities to add the additional information. While users may be more likely to provide additional profile data if it would result in immediate benefits (e.g., immediately improving the online activity they are performing at the moment), from a technical standpoint it is difficult to distinguish times when providing additional profile data would actually improve the immediate online activity and to communicate this effectively to the user.